We really need to adopt a foreign policy similar to N. Korea.. If not, then similar to Iran where we simply outsource foreign policy to a terrorist organization like Hezbollah.
Sometimes a little hard to figure how serious some comments are, mine included I suppose.
One of the more credible models I use in interpreting news drummed up by our corporate warlords is called "The Bowery Wars", or "Flower Wars". It comes from Aztec history in the age before Westerners brought in Machiavelli's methods to the Americas, and is essentially a much more civilized and honest way to do war than Machiavellian methods. . . .
The Aztecs were the super power in their area at the time, and they had a lot of peripheral enemies, some of them pretty sophisticated and even charming folks. Their elites could operate on the same social level as the Aztec elites, and could even be friends with their enemies, and intermarry and stuff like that. But they still needed wars to keep their people in a manageable frame of mind. . . . scared ****less of their enemies and desperately wanting "protection" from their local armies. Of course elites have understood this through the ages, and all great civilizations have had some kind of more or less permanent standing armies and enemies of convenience. . . .
In the Aztec era, the two camps of elites would cooperate and make wars fun. They would build boweries filled with flowers, shade, and booze--- on a good vantage point overlooking the battlefield, and both sets of "leaders" would gather there with their pretty women and have a real "war party". They would watch their armies advance, engage in battle, and cheer for the casualties. It was more or less agreed upon in advance that the wars wouldn't really change anything substantial like territory, and that both sides would come off with fresh captives for their slave labor needs. . . .
It's really great to be a "war lord" or a "military equipment supplier". Not so great to be a soldier, though the myth is expertly maintained amid a plethora of patriotic slogans.
Since the advent of "peace" under the UN world leadership, we have had plenty of meaningless wars and a lot of money spent on military equipment, and our "elites" have pretty well consolidated their power. Of course we will always need some little rogue nations, or some larger scale wars to make the world safe for democracy, or whatever the convenient slogan may call for. . . . bread and milk. . . . just so long as they can get us all worked up to kill one another for some reason. . . . .
the war on terrorism has a definition something to the effect that whatever scares the elites will be called "terrorism", and peasants with pikes huddled under their castle walls being called "terrorists" even though all they are demanding is a few crumbs of bread. . . . .